With the stitches and bandages to prove it, Luis didn't freeze or think about himself first. Hearing his mother's cries for help, he ran to her room and went right after her attacker.

"That's when I saw the guy on top of my mom, stabbing my mom. And there was blood everywhere," said Luis.

Susana Reteguin says at first she thought the intruder was her husband because he usually arrives home from work around that time. It was 1 a.m.

When the man first slowly opened his bedroom door, Luis thought it was his father too, because his dad always checks on him before going to bed.

With his older brother still asleep in the room they share, and his sister sleeping in her room, Reteguin started punching the man who was at least twice his size and age. The man, who had crawled into the second floor apartment armed with a knife, pushed the boy into the bathroom and cut him several times.

"From there I went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. And I was going to cut him over here on his neck but he got the knife and that's when I thought, 'shouldn't I be calling the cops?' and I went for the phone,'" said Luis.

The phone turned out to be his most powerful weapon. Luis called 911 and with that, the man the ran for the door.

"He's an angel," Susana Reteguin said in Spanish. "I love him more than ever. I'm so proud of him. He saved my life."

"Of course I was scared, but I just wanted my mom to be okay," said Luis.

Luis' older brother, Jesus, woke up and ran after the man as he was driving off in a gold car with some kind of picture in the rear window.

Police say they have very little to go on and have not caught the suspect.